


what they don't tell you about coming back from dying

by proximally



Series: abandoned works [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Minor Implied Suicidal Ideation, POV Second Person, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:15:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27151658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proximally/pseuds/proximally
Summary: Chara dies. Chara is still here.
Series: abandoned works [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981928
Kudos: 9
Collections: Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs





	what they don't tell you about coming back from dying

**Author's Note:**

> title from the lyrics of Hotdog & Beans by The Garages. listen. blaseball is a good time.
> 
> originally written july 2016.
> 
> if you'd like to take the concept and run with it, please feel free! i'd really appreciate this being linked back to though.
> 
> also please mind the tags & stay safe.

As a way of dying, you would not recommend buttercups. Nor would you recommend bleeding out from bullet wounds, and here you are facing death yet again. Third time’s the charm, though, right? A shame that it’s entirely in vain, and that you’ve taken your wimp of a brother with you. Then again, you’ve accomplished fuck all in your short time on Earth except ruin other people’s lives, so honestly what did you expect? To do something good? Something useful? What a  _ joke. _ You’ve never been either.

Dust particles shed off your fingers as if you’d disturbed an ornament on a high shelf. You’d hold your breath to avoid inhaling it, but you don’t have the reins here and your brother seems to be hyperventilating, and thereby doing his level best to breathe in  _ all _ of it. You guess it’s not that big a deal - kinda like if you scratched yourself and licked the cut. It’s your own blood, so who cares? If it’s carrying diseases, they’re ones you already have, and - you’re not gonna lie - it makes you feel kinda badass. Like those cartoon heroes, beaten black and blue but still bent on saving the day.

That’s what you thought you were doing. It would’ve made a good story, you think, one that could serve perhaps as an inspiration. Human gets sick and, realising they won’t survive, gives up their soul so that the Barrier can be broken. That’s what you told Asriel to say, anyway. To pretend like you hadn’t planned your death, or the deaths of six others. Put like that, it sounds kinda like a dickmove, but...well. The seven souls you’d specified didn’t deserve to live anyway. This was merely a mercy, a kindness.

You think things would have gone better if you’d stayed dead. Maybe then your brother would have felt some obligation to go through with your plan. God, you should never have trusted him with this. He’s a crybaby. The last three days he’s told you he didn’t like the plan, even though he agreed, even though he promised not to doubt you. Coward. You’d had some pretty choice things to say to him, fifteen minutes ago, and you’re still just as furious, but also you’re dying and you’re kind of too tired. 

Your body’s lying beside you. It’s an ugly thing, especially now, with sickly pale skin and cheeks still stained a blotchy, angry red. It’s dressed in one of your mother’s - no, you don’t get to call them your parents anymore. Not with what you’ve done. Your body is dressed in one of  _ Toriel’s _ old nightshirts, because your own pyjamas weren’t loose or light enough to be comfortable. It’s short-sleeved, and you don’t have to be able to see through your brother’s tears to know the exact locations of the scars. The small, thin ones on your forearms, from a gorse bush you fought through in your ascent. The big one near your left shoulder, where you’d fallen out of a tree. The three stripes on the back of your hand from petting your old neighbour’s demon cat, and the dog bite you got trying to protect it. You’ve never had much of a sense of self-preservation.

It was a pretty awful body, all told. Things just...didn’t work, sometimes, or worked in ways your monster family couldn’t hope to help you with. You’re glad to finally be rid of it.

Your brother doesn’t feel the same way. You can feel his sorrow, his fear, at the edge of your consciousness; usually you might try to comfort him, but screw that. It’s his own dumb fault. Why couldn’t he have just sat back and let you free them, if he was really that squeamish? Surely he must know by now what humans are like - you’ve been here three years.

You hear a shout, a cry of distress. Toriel. Your brother calls out to her, weakly. He’s holding on as best he can, determined to live, but he’s only a monster and you yourself can’t help but want to let go. 

She’s at your side immediately, cradling your head and summoning the healing magic she’d been trying to learn this past week. It’s too late. There’s a gentle stream of dust evaporating from your extremities, and it’s really quite strange how that part doesn’t hurt - just the gunshot wounds. 

She’s calling for Asgore now, and isn’t it funny how people react so differently to the same situation? Besides her initial panic, she’s doing very well to stay calm and collected, considering her son is dying in her arms and your corpse is a gross heap beside her. Asgore, on the other hand, crumbles immediately, and god, don’t you feel guilty now? Knelt beside his wife and one giant hand in yours, he checks your body for a pulse he knows is absent. He squeezes its lifeless hand as if you could feel it, and says, “Oh, my children,” in a voice so small and broken you almost want to laugh. The King of Monsterkind, so big and strong, snapped like a twig by some horrible human kid.  _ Hilarious. _

Your body is disintegrating faster now that the King and Queen are here. Your brother’s will is fading, now that he’s had a chance to say goodbye. He tried handing you the wheel so you could say your farewells too, but tempted as you are, you don’t deserve it. You said nothing, and instead retreated further into the...mindspace, or whatever this is. You’re so ready for oblivion.

“Goodbye, Mum. Goodbye, Dad,” he says, croakily.  _ Goodbye, Chara, _ he says to you. He expects a reply. You’re not going to give him one.  _ I’m sorry, _ he tells you, then, _ I love you. _ Only one of these is true, and...honestly? You’d prefer it be the other way around. 

And then, you’re gone. Asriel is gone, and his dust settles as a thin white layer on his parents’ laps, on the flowers of the throne room, and on your slowly cooling cadaver. His soul lingers a few moments longer, your own floating alongside it, but neither last: cracks spread through them both as if they were glass, and they explode into nothing. You embrace the darkness.

Except…

Except there  _ is _ no darkness. No reaper to claim you, no dark tunnel to travel, no black desert to cross - not even a hint of the flames of Hell, and god knows you deserve them. You’re just...here. Asriel is thoroughly gone, his parents weep in each others’ arms, and you sit in the grass like nothing ever happened. Although…’ _ sit in _ ’ seems more appropriate a term now than it has ever been: there is a buttercup poking out of your thigh, waving back and forth in the gentle breeze from the Barrier. Curious, you touch it; your finger just keeps going, and you poke yourself in the leg.

It’s...very disconcerting. You always kind of expected ghosts to be pale, translucent things, or maybe just shadowy shapes, but your leg looks just as solid as it always has. And you  _ are _ a ghost, or some variation on the theme: you’re a hundred percent dead, and judging by the lack of yelling, you’re a hundred percent invisible too.

You’re interrupted from your musings by a painful tug in your chest, and though your first thought is,  _ wow, this again, _ you remember that you’re dead and actually, physically, no longer have a heart. The pull is constant and grows more painful by the second, and you realise that the Dreemurrs have gone, and they’ve taken your corpse with them. You scramble to your feet - or try to, anyhow. Your hand slips through the ground as you push yourself up - like everything else, it seems, you can’t interact with it. 


End file.
